ColombiaLuis Robayo—AFP/Getty ImagesThree years into his second four-year term, Colombian Pres. Álvaro Uribe remained very popular in 2009. The constitution had been revised once to allow him to run for a second term, and a movement was under way to permit him to run for a third term in 2010. The constitutional reform required popular approval via a referendum. Before the referendum could be held, however, it had to be approved by Congress and reviewed by the Constitutional Court. The referendum received congressional approval in September (after much bargaining) and was passed to the Constitutional Court. If the court took the maximum time allowed to make a decision, Uribe would be prevented from running. The delay put Uribe’s allies in limbo as they refused to declare their candidacies until his status was decided. Meanwhile, the opposition Liberal Party and Alternative Democratic Pole held primaries in late September to winnow their fields of prospective presidential candidates to a single official candidate each.

Uribe’s popularity appeared generally impervious to a number of government scandals. In the so-called parapolitics scandal, more than 70 members of Congress—most of them supporters of the president—were placed under investigation for alleged connections to right-wing paramilitary groups. A second scandal involved allegations that soldiers had killed innocent citizens and—in an attempt to boost the soldiers’ chances for promotion—had recorded those killed as guerrillas or drug traffickers. In yet another scandal, the Department of Administrative Security (DAS), a secret police unit, was accused of having tapped the phones of human rights workers, journalists, judges, and opposition politicians. Uribe responded to the latter scandal by proposing to liquidate the DAS and replace it with a new intelligence unit.

The president and the Supreme Court were in conflict on several fronts. It was the court’s duty to investigate charges that the legislators who supported the referendum to allow Uribe’s reelection bid had acted illegally because the proposal did not have the prior approval of the National Electoral Council. The court also investigated whether the country’s inspector general, who was closely tied to the Uribe administration, had behaved wrongfully when he cleared government officials of charges of vote buying during previous congressional deliberations in 2006 on whether to allow Uribe to seek reelection that year. In an unprecedented move, the Supreme Court in July rejected as unfit all three of the candidates put forward by Uribe for consideration for the office of attorney general.

The government’s close relations with the U.S. continued to cause trouble for it in the region. The announcement that the U.S. military would be allowed to use seven Colombian military bases as part of the battle against drug trafficking (and related armed groups) met with varying levels of opposition from other governments in the region. Venezuelan Pres. Hugo Chávez and Ecuadoran Pres. Rafael Correa were the most vociferous critics. Venezuela suspended relations with Colombia. More alarming to Colombia, however, was the fact that Venezuela borrowed $2.2 billion from Russia to buy arms, including tanks and antiaircraft missiles. Brazil also announced major arms purchases from France, including jet fighters and attack submarines. The spectre of an arms race in the region loomed large.

The Centre for Human Rights and the Displaced estimated that 4.6 million Colombians had been displaced since 1985 by the armed conflict between the government, left-wing guerrillas, and right-wing paramilitaries. The violence pushed more than 380,000 Colombians from their homes in 2008 alone. In 2009 the government began compensation payments to 220,000 victims of the violence, offering families about $9,500 each.

The global economic downturn was felt deeply in Colombia. Urban unemployment reached 13%, and industrial production was down. Two quarters of negative growth put the economy, technically, into recession. The government statistics agency, however, said that it was standing by its estimates of very modest growth for the year as a whole—from 0.5% to 1.5%. Particularly hard hit were the victims of fraudulent investment firms. As many as four million people in Colombia lost their savings when such firms closed or collapsed in late 2008. Curfews were imposed in several cities in an effort to control protesters seeking the return of their money. Many felt the government moved too slowly in response to the crisis.

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